Polyglyceryl ether derivatives exhibit excellent properties as a nonionic surfactant, and have been used in various applications such as food, cosmetics, perfumes, agricultural chemicals and drugs for the purposes of emulsification, solubilization, dispersion, cleaning, foaming, defoaming, penetration, antibacterial effect, etc.
For example, PCT pamphlet WO 2007/066723, etc., disclose a process for producing polyglyceryl ether derivatives in which an alcohol and glycidol are subjected to addition reaction in the presence of a homogeneous catalyst such as La-based catalysts.
However, the above conventional process using the homogeneous catalyst tends to need such a complicated procedure in which after completion of the reaction, the obtained reaction mixture must be dissolved in a large amount of an organic solvent to remove the catalyst therefrom by means of an ion exchange resin, etc., and then the solvent must be further removed from the reaction mixture by distillation, etc. In addition, the process has the problems such as large burden on facilities used therein.
In general, there are known various reactions using a solid catalyst. For example, JP 2007-63210A, JP 9-508434A and JP 8-506137A respectively disclose a process for producing polyglycerol in the presence of a catalyst such as activated carbon and zeolite. In addition, for example, PCT pamphlet WO 2006/085485 discloses a process for producing a polyglyceryl ether derivative from an alcohol and glycidol in the presence of activated carbon as the solid catalyst.